Instrument Made from Waste Material
I had a few ideas that came to mind when we were given the briefing for this assignment. Growing up, I loved creating sounds with my body; I learned to whistle and then learned to make sounds by positioning my hands together and blowing into them. But the way I produced a sound that was the most interesting was how air pressure can be controlled to create a sound that can be changed in pitch. If you make a clapping sound that pushes the air out a particular hole and then move it to your mouth and change how open your mouth is, you can control and change the pitch of the clapping sound.
My idea was to create this sound with a glass jar and a foam drumstick to recreate the clapping sound that anyone can make with their mouth.
My first goal was to enhance the sound quality produced and the comfort of the drumstick for the user. I did this by carving the foam. I cut the top by tracing out the size of the opening in the jar and then slowly cutting the foam away with a craft knife. I made each side different as I knew it would create a different sound; I carved one side to have a crate-like dent in the foam, and the other I carved a mountain-like structure. I carved the handle to fit my hand so it would be more comfortable for me to play my instrument and in the end, these carvings proved a major importance for my instrument as a whole as the sound quality was significantly improved as the drumstick was easier to hold.
Now, my initial idea was to drill holes into a jar. This would mean the pitch could be changed by adding or removing fingers from the jar. This would also mean that the pitch could be easier to control and interesting musical techniques could be used to slide between notes.
This is where I hit my first major problem in the assignment, I couldn't drill holes in the jar. This was due to a number of reasons, firstly I would need a drill tip that had a diamond powder applied to it, and with the fab lab not having one I ruled it out. My next idea was to solder the glass. This involved me slowly applying a hot soldering iron to the glass and I would eventually have been able to carve a circle in the jar. I talked to the fab lab technicians about this, and they thought that it was a dangerous and high-skill process that I wouldn't be able to do. My last and final idea was suggested by Adam, he mentioned a machine that used high-pressure water to cut through materials but that idea was quickly turned down when the machine turned out to be broken with an unknown fix date.
Now that that idea was finished, I had to move forward with the development of my instrument. My next idea was to increase my jars and add different amounts of water to the jars to change the pitch of each jar so I could produce a song. My mum had some spare jars sitting in a cupboard that I used. I had 8 with the idea of creating one octave, but I later realized why I couldn't do this, which I will get to shortly.
I added an extra 1/2 cup of water to each cup with the first jar having no water and the 8th jar having 2 1/2 cups of water. But it turns out that 2 and 2 1/2 cups of water is too much and the sound created was terrible. It was very shallow with no pop, so I decided to drop the last two and try to make do with only 6 jars, which turned out ok in the end. The image above is me tuning the jars to make sure the sound produced was even so I could make a score with confidence and I had the right notes. This took around an hour to produce and I found that the way one strikes the jar has a massive impact on the pitch and quality of the sound produced. In order to create the most even and best sound, the jar needs to be struck at a perfect perpendicular angle, which is hard to do consistently. As well as this, the jar needs to be struck very hard in order to create the best-popping sound and a volume that can be confidently heard.
My next goal was to see how surrounding material affects the sound produced, this means the material under the jar and the size of the room. This is more important than it appears to be as acoustics is very important when it comes to a musical performance. I needed a surface that produced a quality sound as well as the ability to make sure the jars won't move around when struck. The room needed to create quality sounds as well, I tried to play the instrument in several rooms in my house such as the bathroom, a bedroom, living room, and kitchen but determined the kitchen to be the best as it gave the sound room to bounce off the walls with the material under the jars being stone.
Since I now had a location to play the instrument, it was time to move over to the layout of the instrument to provide comfort for the user. I never considered with until I started to play with the jars in a row, it was uncomfortable to switch between jars. I had five ideas that came to mind and after I while of playing I determined the best one, a lined the jars in a line by having a slight curve to match the bend in my arm so it was easier to turn.
It was time now to play a song on the instrument. Since I only had 6 jars meaning 6 notes, I had to select a song that only used 6 notes. In the end, I went with Twinkle twinkle little star, it is a song everyone knows so it is easier to compare the notes produced with an actual song.
This is the score I created, the top is my initial score which uses numbers to match a jar so you hit the jar when you see the number. This is very basic and too easy, so I wanted to create a score that was more visually pleasing, I still went with the number idea but used a graph-like structure to do so. each versus then corresponds to a symbol which is then placed in a line to produce the final score.
To conclude, I would say the craft of producing this instrument is in the water and the surrounding. The water was measured very precisely to create a tuned note and the surroundings ensure a better sound produced as I feel my instrument as a whole appears very simple and basic but I think that is the way music should be. It means that everyone can experience the beauty of music and the beauty of imperfection.
